IPA Clone Series
As hard as I try, I never get sick of IPAs; it just doesn’t happen. I can drink IPAs all night, and still crave an IPA the next day. I’m probably in the minority here, but my taste buds are always craving something extraordinarily hoppy. In Vinnie Cilurzo’s words, I’ve definitely had a lupulin threshold shift.
I have my own IPA and DIPA recipes that I am absolutely in love with, but as they say, variety is the spice of life. So I’m going to spend the next few months trying my absolutely hardest to brew spot-on clones of some of the best IPAs in the country. Typically I take some creative liberties when I brew clones, to tailor them to my tastes, but for this little run, I’m going to brew them as exact as I can.
I’ll be working off of known clone recipes, and a few of my own to try to replicate these beers. Other than Pliny, the commercial examples are all available here in Phoenix, so it won’t be tough to see how close my attempts are.
In no particular order, the line up is:
– Russian River – Pliny the Younger
– Firestone Walker – Union Jack
– Bell’s – Two Hearted Ale
– Russian River – Pliny the Elder
– Four Peaks – Hop Knot
– Firestone Walker – Double Jack
Thankfully I have all the hard-to-find hops needed for these recipes. Union Jack and Pliny the Elder should be slam dunks, since there are well established recipes for those. That is assuming I can muster the brewing prowess. For Hop Knot, I’ve already put together a solid recipe, but it still needs some very minor tweaks. Pliny the Younger, Double Jack, and Two Hearted Ale all required some research, but after a lot of digging, I’ve got some good info.
Look forward to recipes and brew day notes here soon. The Younger is first!
Double Jack is a fantastic DIPA…I recently had it on tap and it's easily one of the best IPAs I've had in a long time.
I'm with you, it's my favorite beer in the country. It's going to be a tough beer to clone, they've set the bar really high.
Very much looking forward to this. Keep us updated on the process! I'm interested in a little insight on how you go about cloning beers too…right now I try to gain as much info as I can from the brewer's website, but I have a hard time discerning grains and hops from the taste.
Really the only two hops I can pick out right now are Centennial, Simcoe and Citra…not sure how to improve my palette!
Really wish I could get my hands on those Firestone Walker beers…